Lourence Ilagan arrived early morning from England September 10, 2009. Brimming with pride, he gave some personal insights on his trip from the Winmau Masters to the NDFP.

He came to be known as the “Dancing Filipino” with his dancing antics on stage. Initially he was being announced as the unknown dart player from Manila but as the tournament progressed and the crowd began to take notice, the announcers began calling him the “Dancing Filipino”.

His feat did not come unnoticed as people came for autographs and personal congratulations while eating in McDonalds. Being widely seen on the televised matches he played, he became a recognizable celebrity as an underdog who beat the odds. Ilagan won £3,000 for reaching the top 4 of the Winmau Masters.

In his England interviews, while inviting the international darters to the 5 Million Manny Pacquiao International Darts Classic this November, someone commented that as Manny Pacquiao beat Englishman, Ricky Hatton, another Filipino again beat the Englishmen but this time on their own turf and on their own game.

His ascendancy to the quarter-finals came under protest as Waites, whom he beat in the round of 16, protested his qualification to play in the Winmau Masters having played in the World Darts Championship of the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) last December. The protest went up to the President of the British Dart Organization (BDO) who subsequently overturned the protest as he did not sign as a PDC player. The BDO and the PDC has been in conflict since the early 90”s and it has heated up again in the last few years.

Ilagan won the NDFP Philippine Qualifier to the World Darts Championship to represent the Philippines as the wild card player in the World Darts Championship last December. Ilagan confided that the experience he gained playing in England last December tremendously helped him overcome the pressure and the anxiety playing in front of the huge crowd of the premier darting country in the world.

With the milestone of being the top Asian and only Filipino to reach the top 4 of a world championship, major dart distributors Harrows and Winmau invited him to be their signature player, but being in contract and a signature player of Monster Barrel and Design, he declined.

Ilagan will next see action in the 100K 1st Deloso Cup and his participation will be highly anticipated as the rising Philippine dart hero. Ilagan encourages more darters to continue practicing and hopefully bring more honors to Philippine darts. And his parting words were “maraming pang magagaling na Darterong Pinoy na lalabas sa maraming tuloy-tuloy na malalaking tournaments ng NDFP sa Pilipinas, umpisa pa lang ito.”